Receive the latest national-international updates in your inbox

Children who survived a deadly suspected gas attack in Syria's northern Idlib province were hooked up to ventilators as they recovered on Tuesday, April 4, 2017. A top Syrian military official denied government responsibility for the attack, which was carried out around the same time as other airstrikes in the area. (Published Tuesday, April 4, 2017)

Assad was speaking in his first interview since the deadly alleged gas poisoning in Idlib that prompted a U.S. missile strike in retaliation. President Donald Trump and other leaders blame Assad for around 100 civilian deaths.

"Our impression is that the West, mainly the United States, is hand in glove with the terrorists," he said, referring to the rebel groups that are fighting his Assad regime. "They fabricated the whole story in order to have a pretext for the attack."

In the interview with news agency AFP, Assad also said Syria's military had given up all chemical weapons. The interview was recorded in Damascus by Syrian government cameras and released to other media outlets

Tillerson, Mattis Urges Russia to Pick a Side on Syrian War

The Trump administration had a full day responding to President Donald Trump's Thursday missile strike on Syria, following news of a gas attack that killed more than 80 people. While Secretary of State Rex Tillerson urged Russia to abandon Syria as an ally, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis fielded domestic concerns at the Pentagon, promising "a very, very stiff price" for Syria's use of chemical warfare.